


Five times Aziraphale accidentally vanished Crowley’s glasses and the one time Crowley took them off in time

by missyay



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 19:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19410232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missyay/pseuds/missyay
Summary: It’s a pity he can’t see Crowley’s eyes, he thinks, and then, rather abruptly, Crowley’s godawful tinted glasses vanish.Crowley stares at him for a second, yellow eyes wide with something like betrayal, arms falling at his sides, and then he quickly closes his eyes and stops walking, fumbling for something in his bag.





	Five times Aziraphale accidentally vanished Crowley’s glasses and the one time Crowley took them off in time

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that I don't know anything about history or wine! If you would like to educate me, you are very welcome to do so, but please be kind :)

1- The first time it happens is in Rome, shortly after the whole carpenter debacle. Tensions are running high, but nobody knows why except (Aziraphale assumes) the higher-ups above, who always seem to know everything. He ran into Crowley a few days ago and he doesn’t plan on letting him get away, mostly because it is nice to have someone else who is just as clueless and just as annoyed about it as Aziraphale. 

They are taking a walk, ostensibly to share what little information they have, but really Aziraphale has devised a plan to get Crowley in the vicinity of some oysters and then get him to eat them. (The plan actually ends after getting Crowley in the vicinity of the oysters, relying on the demon’s curiosity and the monkey-see-monkey-do approach he has adopted for all things human and life on earth in general.) Crowley is talking animatedly as he goes, flinging his hands around without care, effortlessly carving them a comfortable path in the busy street they’re on. “And I get it where Below is concerned, we’re hell, of course everything’s disorganised as all get-out and nobody tells anyone shit, but you’re - you’re - you’re supposed to be all organised! They should work on their communication, they should, you work for them, you are their only agent on earth, they should tell you what’s going on!”

Aziraphale looks at him sidelong. Crowley has thrown his hands in the air as if talking directly to Heaven, still striding forward all the while. Aziraphale doesn’t know what to make of it - whether Crowley is trying to tell Aziraphale he doesn’t believe him when he says he has no idea what’s going on, or if he is genuinely upset on Aziraphale’s behalf, which would be very sweet of him indeed. Aziraphale tries to tamp down on that notion. It’s a pity he can’t see Crowley’s eyes, he thinks, and then, rather abruptly, Crowley’s godawful tinted glasses vanish. 

Crowley stares at him for a second, yellow eyes wide with something like betrayal, arms falling at his sides, and then he quickly closes his eyes and stops walking, fumbling for something in his bag.

“What are you planning, angel?” he hisses, eyes still shut tight. “Exssssposssing me on a bussssy sssstreet, are you-”

“Oh dear”, Aziraphale says, quite distressed. He hasn’t accidentally used magic in decades, he has no idea how this could have happened. “I am terribly sorry, let me just -” he starts waving his hand, a little aimlessly, not entirely sure about the shape Crowley wants his curious eyewear to be, but Crowley stops him. “I’ve got it”, he snaps, pulling an identical back-up pair of glasses out of his bag and setting them on his nose. Pity, thinks Aziraphale again, and mentally kicks himself at the thought.

Crowley continues walking, and Aziraphale trails behind him, embarrassment curling up into a tight, anxious ball in his stomach. “I just wanted-” he starts, and stops again. How to explain this? He can’t very well just say I wanted to see your eyes. “It was an accident”, he finishes lamely. Crowley looks at him, eyebrows rising high over his glasses, the edge of his mouth curling up the slightest bit. Aziraphale hopes it’s a good expression. The I-believe-you-and-now-think-you’re-incompetent kind. They continue walking for a few minutes, neither of them picking up the conversation.

Eventually, Crowley says, not unkindly: “You’re not blinking, angel.”

Aziraphale blinks ten times to make up for it, and says: “Thank you.”

2-

The second time is in the middle of WWII, they’ve happened upon each other in Berlin just this morning and have arranged to meet for dinner. They’re terribly busy both, but Crowley is very tight-lipped about the details of his own mission, which Aziraphale believes more and more is due to shame rather than loyalty to his people. 

Dinner is a quiet affair. Aziraphale is glad that he found Crowley, a clinging relief that he doesn’t have to endure this alone, but there’s nothing he could say that isn’t either forced optimism or piling their shattered hopes on top of each other. He is harboring some doubts about this whole free will thing. There’s nothing particularly _free_ about being captured and killed for who you are.

Their waitress’s father is Jewish, and she is scraping by on fake passports and other people’s mercy. Aziraphale quietly renders the passport in her pocket a little bit more believable as she refills their glasses, and Crowley gives him the hint of a nod.

He is occupying his seat in a way that looks less like his usual careless slouch and more slightly anguished. Aziraphale searches his usually so expressive face and finds nothing: his eyebrows aren’t raised, his mouth is slack. His fingers are drumming an erratic beat on the table. Aziraphale wishes he could see his eyes.

And then there they are, for a split second, downcast, the pupils just the tiniest slivers of black. Aziraphale thinks he sees something between bargaining and anger in them before Crowley raises a hand to shield them from him.

“This is becoming a pattern, angel”, he tells him, sounding, of all things, _tired_. Aziraphale feels suitably chastised.

“Sorry”, he says, “I’m so - here, let me.” He miracles up a new pair of sunglasses, tortoiseshell frames and light enough for a glimmer of Crowley’s eyes to be visible through. Crowley takes them, eyes still closed, and puts them on wordlessly.

They clash horribly with the rest of his outfit, and Aziraphale spends a few panic-filled moments trying to shape them into something more fitting, rounder - no - more thick-rimmed - no - darker - no - until Crowley says, slightly alarmed: “You’re turning a bit blue, is your vessel-” and Aziraphale remembers to take a breath. And then not to stop taking breaths.

“Yeah,” Aziraphale says, “Sorry, I just forgot to-” 

He hasn’t forgotten to breathe for at least five thousand years, when having a body was still a relatively new thing. It’s an absolute beginner’s mistake, and Aziraphale has no idea what it is about Crowley that makes him forget himself so frequently - well. He has an idea. It’s just that his idea is even more embarrassing than sheer idiocy, so he chooses to ignore it.

“Breathe,” Crowley reminds him again, and Aziraphale breathes. He is vaguely aware that his vessel is not handling his panic terribly well. Crowley leans forward and touches his hand, which is instantly grounding in a not necessarily pleasant way.

Aziraphale found out a few centuries ago that touching Crowley is ever so slightly painful: it’s a _too-much_ kind of a feeling that his vessel has trouble assigning an adjective to until it settles on _too hot_. Less like touching red-hot iron and more like the metal of a heating unit, just that side of comfortable. Like _comfortable and then some_.

It’s probably to do with what they are, just like standing on holy ground is slightly unnerving to Crowley.

Not that it matters. They almost never touch.

Aziraphale focuses on breathing and the sharp point of contact between them, and on watching Crowley watch him. His eyebrows are raised again, like the tail end of a question Aziraphale missed. 

“I’m fine”, he says. “Sorry about that.”

Crowley lets go of his hand, and Aziraphale feels some kind of way about it.

“No harm done”, Crowley says easily. Then he catches his reflection in the back of his spoon and sputters. “ _Yes_ harm done, what the hell, was that your nefarious plan, really? _Tortoiseshell frames_?”, and they fall into a familiar argument about fashion from there, the relief of it almost palpable in the air.

3-

It happens again on the way back home after Crowley hit a bicyclist with his car (or, as Crowley puts it, a bicyclist hit his car). Crowley is scowling underneath his glasses, muttering about the Bentley until Aziraphale tosses out a, “be glad she didn’t die, there’s no miracling away death”, and his face goes abruptly blank. 

This time, Aziraphale doesn’t catch a glimpse, because Crowley turns to face the opposite direction the second his glasses are gone, already pulling out a back-up pair from his seemingly infinite supply. 

“Stop that”, he says irritably, and proceeds to let go of the steering wheel to put them on. Aziraphale can’t stop the slightly distressed noise in the back of his throat as the Bentley veers into the opposite lane. “Well, yeah, maybe if you didn’t keep vanishing my glasssssesss you wouldn’t have to panic every time”, Crowley hisses, yanking the steering wheel back into position.

Aziraphale gets the distinct impression that this is not about the glasses.

“I’m sorry”, he ventures, and Crowley scoffs. “About what I said”, he tacks on. The silence in the car takes on a slightly less aggressive flavour. “I know you don’t aim to kill, that’s not your style.” 

Crowley stops at the next red light, which is as close to accepting an apology as he gets.

4-

“What does it feel like for you?”

Aziraphale knows Crowley feels some kind of way about it too, he sees it in the way Crowley either touches him or doesn’t, no lingering, no ghosting the way he is so prone to with others: just a whisper of a touch to entice someone, to nudge them in a direction. 

Crowley pulls his hand out of Aziraphale’s, now back to his own corporation, glasses in place. He looks at Aziraphale, blank-faced. “What?”

“Touching me”, Aziraphale says, and Crowley freezes. 

Aziraphale consciously stops himself from doing it, this time, but not for long enough, because Crowley stays frozen for what feels like eternity. _We don’t talk about this_ is hanging in the air between them. 

Then his glasses are gone and Aziraphale catches the hint of a glimpse of panic-wide yellow eyes before Crowley schools his features into a laugh. His skin crinkles up into delightful crow’s feet, and he says, “Oh, you’ve got to stop doing that, angel.”

He doesn’t bother replacing the glasses this time. They’ve already checked and rechecked that nobody’s watching. His eyes are resting on Aziraphale, amused.

“Well?” Aziraphale says, embarrassed, mentally feeling around for Crowley’s glasses in the pocket dimension he uses to vanish things. He must have buried them deep.

Crowley’s laugh fades into a smile, and then tapers off into careful neutrality. “It feels a bit like getting zapped with electricity”, he finally settles for. 

Aziraphale flinches.

“Not in a bad way!” Crowley adds quickly. “Not like a power outlet. An electric fence at the most. A weak one.”

There’s a pause, and then he asks, “What about you?”

“Hot”, he says. Crowley visibly parses that. “Like a too-hot shower.” _I like too-hot showers,_ Aziraphale doesn’t say. Then, he finally gets a hold of the glasses and wrenches them free of the pocket dimension. “There you go”, he says, holding them out. 

Crowley looks at them, and then very deliberately touches Aziraphale’s hand as he takes them. Aziraphale watches the shock of it travel up his arms, muscles tensing ever so slightly underneath his skin, his mouth twitching into a smile, eyes widening, pupils dilating until there’s only a sliver of yellow left. Aziraphale watches for a fascinated second until he realises that Crowley must be doing the same, and he pulls away his hand.

Crowley puts his glasses back on and gives him an impish smile.

“Not all bad, yeah?” he says in that way he has that’s desperately trying to come off as a throwaway comment and is anything but.

“Yeah”, Aziraphale says, in that way he has that pointedly adds weight to a word.

5-

If Aziraphale had an Idea before, it is quickly growing into an Obsession now, and there’s not really anything he can do about it - that’s not right, there isn’t really anything he _wants_ to do about it: the whole giddy feeling of it is wonderfully new, and Aziraphale has always been bad at denying himself anything that makes him feel good.

So he spends his days daydreaming about what it would be like to just touch Crowley whenever he feels like it. Taking his hand. Touching his face. Tousling his hair. He fantasises about the way Crowley’s slitted pupils dilate at his touch. 

The only moments he doesn’t spend daydreaming are the ones he spends with Crowley, because it feels a bit inappropriate. And anyway, that way he might miss something Crowley says, of which there is an awful lot, and you never know when there’s something important wrapped up in it. 

Like right now, when Crowley saunters into the bookshop and right through to Aziraphale’s flat, plops down on his couch like he belongs, putting his shoes up on the armrest, and says, “Angel, we should go out more.”

“Go out?” Aziraphale fixes the armrest with a Look, not that he thinks that would get Crowley to get his feet off it, but he has to keep up appearances. 

“Yeah, go out, see the world, find new places, you know, the apocalypse has been prevented, I feel like we should see more of the world now that it isn’t, you know, ash?” Crowley’s eyebrows are visible above his glasses, his mouth stretched into a broad, easy smile. His foot is tapping a rhythm into Aziraphale’s upholstery.

Is he _nervous_? Aziraphale vanishes his glasses with a flick of his hand.

Crowley’s eyes are fixed on Aziraphale, an almost hopeful expression on his face.

Then, Crowley huffs and turns his back to Aziraphale. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’ve been over this. _Warn_ a guy.”

“Yeah”, Aziraphale says. _We_ , he thinks. “Sure. Let’s take a sabbatical.”

“Alright.” When Crowley turns to face him again, he’s wearing sunglasses again, but they’re perched on the tip of his nose, like an attempted compromise. He holds out a hand. “Help me up. Let’s drink to this.”

It’s a deliberate gesture, an offer if Aziraphale ever saw one, and he doesn’t hesitate: He clasps Crowley’s hand firmly and pulls him to his feet, the heat of it like a pleasant shock to his system. Maybe he imagines the way Crowley’s hair is standing on end the tiniest bit, but he definitely doesn’t imagine the way his eyes widen. 

“Like waking up again, isn’t it?” he says, still holding Crowley’s hand in his, hot and real almost to the point of pain. 

“Huh?” Crowley’s eyes are still on him.

“Like you’re already awake, but then it wakes you up again.” Too much. Aziraphale clears his throat and draws back his hand. “I’ll get the wine, you find us some glasses.” 

“Yeah”, Crowley says in a tone he can’t really pinpoint. When Aziraphale turns back to check, Crowley has pushed his glasses up again. Aziraphale makes a frustrated sound and goes to find the oldest, most celebratory wine he has lying around.

+1-

“To going out!” 

“To going out! Seeing the wondrous world! Have you been to Japan lately? I want to do Tokyo again, it’s been _so long_.”

They’re several toasts deep into the bottle of Merlot Aziraphale found, deep enough that Crowley is slumped on Aziraphale’s shoulder, hair almost but not quite touching his neck. 

He’s good at that, Aziraphale thinks. He’s good at being close without touching, slinking and twisting and dancing around him with those terribly bendy limbs of his, almost like he’s practiced this. Almost like he has always tried to be as close to Aziraphale as he can get without sounding the alarm, so to speak. It’s endearing, now that Aziraphale thinks about it, which is why he blurts out, “What do you reckon it would be like, kissing?”

Crowley sits up immediately, which is Aziraphale’s first clue that he isn’t nearly as drunk as he thought. Then he takes off his glasses, folds them neatly and sets them down on the coffee table, which is the second. Aziraphale appreciates that he realises that this is a glasses-off kind of conversation. Then he gets his third clue, which is the look in Crowley’s eyes as he turns back, so full of _longing_ and so goddamn conflicted about it that it almost breaks Aziraphale’s heart, and he knows: He’ll have to make the second step, too, and then maybe the third. 

He’ll do it, too.

“Only, one way to find out, I suppose?” he says, turning to face Crowley completely.

Crowley clears his throat. There’s a beat. Then he says, in a tone that fails spectacularly at sounding casual, “Sure, yeah”, and turns around as well, his knee bumping into Aziraphale’s thigh.

Aziraphale swallows. He has thought about getting this far, but not really much further. He is not very imaginative when it comes to these things. He always just thought that Crowley would take it from here.

He brings up a tentative hand, and then reaches out to cup Crowley’s jaw. Heat races through his palm as it connects, and Crowley twitches back ever so slightly, and then pushes his cheek into Aziraphale’s hand as if to cancel out his instinctual reaction, and Aziraphale is so hopelessly, endlessly _smitten_ , there is nothing he can do about it.

He leans forward and kisses Crowley, and there is nothing tentative about it, not when it starts out at _too much_ and progresses from there: no point in being shy, really, if every tiny point of contact is amplified like this. He thinks to open his eyes after a few seconds, when Crowley’s sharp, clever mouth falls open under his own, and he chases and finds Crowley’s lovely split tongue. Crowley lets out a sharp noise, and Aziraphale watches him shiver under his hands and mouth. He smiles and presses closer still, the way he cranks up the water temperature all the way even when his skin is already lobster red, sinking his hands into Crowley’s hair. Crowley moans.

Aziraphale is already well on his way into Crowley’s lap when Crowley’s movements grow sluggish and he pretty abruptly sinks out of Aziraphale’s grasp and back into the couch, breathing hard. His face is very white.

“Are you okay, my dear?” Aziraphale asks, hands fluttering around him, not sure if touching him would be wise, and then, realising, he snaps his fingers and says, “Heartbeat, Crowley, heartbeat!” 

Crowley visibly makes the effort to have one, and looks better almost immediately. Aziraphale grabs him by the shoulders, still wide-eyed. “I am so- so sorry, dearest, I don’t know what - I suppose maybe I should not have gotten that close, you _did_ say it felt like electricity, I hear these things can be very taxing on a corporation, wouldn’t want to send you to hell in these awful times-” he stops babbling only when Crowley raises a slightly shaking hand.

“All good, angel”, he says weakly. “I um”, he wets his lips and looks away, “I just. Forgot. To have a heartbeat. For a few seconds.”

Aziraphale is stunned for a second, and then absolutely _delighted_. Before he can say anything, Crowley warningly says, “Remember, angel, I didn’t say anything when you forgot to blink that time in Rome, and then to _breathe_ in Berlin. Remember how charitable that was of me.”

Aziraphale elects to be charitable as well, and to go back to kissing Crowley instead of laughing at him.


End file.
